Bearing Up, Painting & Creating, being Mindful & Homeless People

PAINTING AND CREATING 

Bearing up has many definitions....

The paintings I have done on watercolour paper , fabric gift bags, some linen panel and some wood pieces ....the bear face was only one illustration, cat, dog, deer were part of this ....

BEING MINDFUL

 The storm last night that appeared to have swept the state was another bearing up as after the thunder and some heavy rain the TV no longer had a signal.

Darn I so wanted to watch the DNA program on SBS but finally after trying to rescan the TV channels I settled in to knowing I can watch if on the website...

Technology is amazing until it flunks or costs increase so far beyond the pockets of the people who serve it...

I did watch a couple of sessions of a series on ABC, decided I was lucky I had light to read by & a book to read and the fact I could read..

So I was grateful ....

HOMELESS PEOPLE

Before the real rain arrived last night an article about HOMELESS PEOPLE at the Huntly Lions Park on outskirts of Bendigo had been rezoned so the campers can now be moved on.

This homeless camp was mentioned in the Bendigo local paper some weeks ago and I knew about the hidden homeless people in freezing Bendigo and this Huntly plight was a news item.

I thought where will they go ? why doesn't the council look after them.??

No body but charities care !

This last piece just boggled my brain and for the 2nd time in 100 days of Govt I sent the article to the Federal Minister for Housing and Homeless

Not so much that the power is with the minister but profile matters at times and reminding every elected Premier and Shire councillor they need to start a more innovative quicker planning  for this to be resolved soon like within weeks not months and years.

Does anyone find these situations really disturbing ???

I do 

Some of your ancestors would have walked from cities through country regions looking for work to support their families after WW2

 ....I recall because I saw these beaten souls from a pre school and later school eyes and the images and the explanations my parents told me are etched in my mind.

HOW CAN WE DO SIMILIAR THINGS TODAY  ?

You see I illustrate and write to make sense of this world and to provide many with an escape into the softer sides of designing , sewing ,painting etc....

Spring is not far away

The pictures today are fabric paintings I did and have popped on my 

www.theodoracleave.com

I watch & wait as spring tempts me...slowly the mornings warm and if the rain forgets to arrive sunshine !!! is there instead.

I love this time in a way that every plant comes to life....

Who said quite belongs to the country.... ride on mowers seem to dominate the weekends around me....

and during the week different renovations and buildings are constructed and reconstructed or repaired....

My friendly magpies come calling, not every day... now they have been on their list I am not courted as they began...

3 chorusing at my back door, it was so special

Now they work the lawn and as they stroll closer to the house they sing .... if I show up they are happy but if not they continue with their life.... I noticed the wattle birds take advantage of the friendship and quitely come by later.... blackbirds there are 2 who stick to the fence lines, and I see them happily turning over the newest garden spot I have out there..... I am in agreement....

The garden spot was planted with cuttings from around this garden, I rent you see... & I hate poisons to kill weeds , which grown again exactly as before so ????

I make small plantings in these spots....and I have been rewarded by geraniums happily a foot high and flowering this spring from cuttings where weeds just grew...

Now I have taken more cuttings as some of the older geraniums are bushes of mostly pinks & whites but one red I discovered under a huge daisy bush....

To strike in jars on my laundry thick sill.... to plant in other spots that I am looking at.

One side a very narrow side of the house to garden was peppered with thistle seeds blown down the side... I thought not having this while i live here...and struck succulents and geraniums there and now there is this orderly little long garden... on the fence side.... the other side is short but some animal visits there and this season dug furiously under a concrete slab where the air con sits ??? My letting agent thinks it will be rabbits, REALLY ...

Something I learn most days 

I also learnt on deterrents  for this family and the possum that moved slightly over to my vege patch ... raw onion and garlic cut up seems to do the trick....for both....

So the days move on to spring and I am so looking forward to a hot shower.... when some stitches are removed from my nose..... little surgery to take away a skin cancer & do a biopsy while at it....

I have 3 days to wait.... the sponging down does feel good but hopefullly come Wednesday I will be able to wash my short hair !

 

Button Designer Barb Smith from Theodora Cleave

 I have begun to make Button Stories again...

This time i am painting the "stitching" part of the illustration on water colour paper.....

The button stories began a long time ago now....

when I was taking the buttons etc to a Quilt Trade Show in Melbourne.... I made a long display of the buttons that was a story to place on the wall... then came the single story cards..... 

The Adopted Cat

This is the story of an adopted cat....

I know through a friend and I have elaborated...

Most of these parts of the story are available as illustrations now on the 

www.theodoracleave.com

 In the Things to Stitch section

Illustrations give you the creative way to choose to stitch and whether heavy or border stitching...or needle turn, felt applique, paint with watercolours or acrylics on paper or fabric, colour in etc.

They are in sets of 4 and simply $2.50 per design ....!!!!

.....

Simplicity takes me off to my Great Great Grandmother Dorothea Driver who was an Irish Quaker 

I have somehow collected parts of that belief without knowing how come & where from LOL

This comes along my father's side but a couple of generations later....religions had shifted with the generations from Methodist to Catholic to zilch.

The strength in honesty was a HUGE topic with my father especially as young child.... so that has been ingrained in me.

The inner light I feel is the soul well for me but it is strong ... hard to explain that one.

Integrity

Equality

Simplicity

Community

Peace

Stewardship of the earth.

Everyone is equal was always a strong current & I expected to be treated as equal to any other person .... it was like some known thing.

Simplicity in my work in my life I seek peace....

I was raised with a woodcutter so the bush is not like some who discover it later in their life.....it is there.... 2 trees if one ever was sawn down.... 

gardens a natural which were functional for varying reasons ... food, water drainage ..beauty perfume ...

So maybe I have the answer and the light shines brightly

 

Chalk White Christmas Decorations

I love the chalky white decorations....

This bag of 4 are the first and are selling as a sample bag with a delightful price too.

Sample bag is the try out bag .... 

www.theodoracleave.com

 

I don't think this shoe fits now !

 Squeeze one's foot into a tight space....

ouch it hurts and i can hardly move....

These shoes of life are now shrinking, making me very uncomfortable....

It is like the saying 

"Until you walk in the shoes"

Well that certainly applies here too....

pebbles in the shoe, the ones you shake out and think that is fixed but it never is.....

The other thing I think of often of late is 

"I am ready to walk off into the distance and never once have the need to look back"

I am gone & I am done

These shoes will be tossed into the bin....

and

then I will find shoes that are comfortable, supportive, shine , never pinch my toes or my mind ......

The old shoes I dangle over the stream of fast running water & LET GO.....

 

 

Nearing Spring

My Garden I planted in Canberra from scratch .....

Cosmos I planned for the front piece beside the path that first year...

They did give a beautiful planting of pinks & whites...

Swaying in gentle breezes.

I would pull seed off and rescatter for next year and the finches flew in and ate and scattered the seeds to the back garden , as the photo here depicts....

the seeds thanks to the birds provide patches of cosmos to my neighbours in a couple of years.

I plan to scatter many packets of cosmos here for summer....

The shasta daisies were also happiness as they flowered in summer.... outside the kitchen window and way down in a back area that had a water issue in earlier days of plantings...

They stayed for a long time but cutting off the dead flowers and stems was a drudge.....

Birch  trees out the front higher garden than the house....

then the cosmos were joined by coreposis the yellow happiness that scattered seed along the pathway and where ever happiness needed to be....

I need to dig out the other photos better than this lot of pictures ....of the garden that was a lushness and had something happening all year around and the tiniest of lawn on the huge block.....

Native and exotic shrubs were planted and kept a distance from the overhead power lines at the back of the garden.....

It is amusing as well as frustrating to me as now I rent and I have aged and people cannot resist being all knowing on gardening and slopping out advice I most often do not need.... never any offer of manual help though...

But they assume I have never gardened ..never known a vast patch of clay..with water racing down the incline past the dining room window to the inadequate drains .......

or the truck load of stones backed in behind the retaining wall near the kitchen that in one storm shifted all the stones down to far corner of land & under the fence .....

We had challenges then too ....

But I had a love of flowers and a desire to irradicate weeds and no chemicals enhancements ...

It was done...and lawn mowing was by push mower from Kmart manpower by Phil ! 

Today I rent, I really do not want any sized garden now...

but I have this park line block which has flowers at the fence edges and some trees....it too has beauty.

I strike cuttings from the existing garden and occasionally buy in a plant or 2 to add to spots that grow weeds all of the time...and for me it enhances the garden...with colour.

If it were mine .... I would as one thinks......dismiss any need for ride on mowers fueled and costly to have mown and not to mention a hot summer & watering needs to keep lawns green.....

 

The Farm House white influence with a touch of France

I have been wanting to 

break away..

.change...

alter...

the way I had been designing or painting....

**********

Suddenly I longed for 

Simplicity...

Excitement...

Change.... 

In colours of white and red...

a slight starkness of palette ....

decorating with trims ...

I checked in with my vast catalogue of designs in wood to see what may work on being made larger....and not be drowned...

As I was painting with Annie Sloans chalk paint and it is a thicker paint with a different control of the brush than I am now accustomed to... some things might just look urk.

I waited days after the paint arrived and new wood bits were cut for me and in my head images kept wandering about adding more & more to the decorating of pieces.

Finally find time to explore this...things funnily got in the way...

a day would be gone...

Then I needed to start and failing was mindful .....hangs around if there is a big shift....in my life !

So I do it anyway as that is part of the creative process seeing if this idea works..... 

Come with me by going to www.theodoracleave.com

and purchasing a few to of these decorations to decorate in a white theme with a little red.

Each piece will be different !

I am eager to go find more embellishments now .... 

 

Houses make Homes

To have a home is necessary for wellbeing and for society to function well and be healthy.

It is the place we retreat to after a long day or a tricky encounter.

It is the place of shelter from freezing cold and heatwaves.

BUT

Our society thinks it is the human failure of suddenly not having a home..... half have inherited so ??? but often such in society are the harshest judgers.

Corruption at an overall societal reach is something that encourages all sorts of behaviour if left unchecked.

Maybe just maybe humans are not all that nice as a collective.

I have drawn what I would like.... to have ....

To have a $35,000 investment in a home returned to me with interest since 2000....

or a lottery win to the equivalant would suffice ....LOL

I have just renewed my lease for one year WHEW

and I have a house inspection due in a week..... 

I remember those days where paying rent each week, having leases and house inspections were never on my radar.

So now I use my artistic talents and hope to maybe just maybe acquire a home of mine once again.